Mandelbrot’s home at IBM is secure, and with that security he continues to search about for interesting problems that fit his growing fractal toolkit. He remains worried that he has started his great work too late in life, and with that worry he remains determined to seek out and pursue new problems which his field of fractals can solve.

Best Quote(s)

“It forced me to gather all I had achieved and fit it into an hour. This effort started me on my 1975 book.”

Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractalist, Chapter 24 (Location 3706)

Mandelbrot accepts the lecture in France, and by doing so he creates a deadline. This forces him to organize his notes, which become the foundation of the book that would make his name known worldwide.

Page by Page, Screen by Screen, Swipe by Swipe

3673

“It began exceptionally late, so I continually felt in a great hurry and ranged in directions far more varied than I would have thought sensible or feasible.”

3678

“Instead, I was doing what happened to be most desirable given what I perceived as the market for scientific ideas like mine—or, in other cases, what I viewed as easiest to undertake given some special resource that had become available in one corner or another of a very large institution.”

Trumbull Lecturer and Visiting Professor of Applied Mathematics at Yale

3689

“…my various models of “abnormality” in the real world.”

In Paris: A Lecture Not to Be Forgotten

3706

“It forced me to gather all I had achieved and fit it into an hour. This effort started me on my 1975 book.”

“I answered each, briefly but technically. In a sense, I gave a dozen five-minute technical presentations.”

Deciding Not to Compete for the Collège de France

3733

“What I am about to say may sound ridiculous. Burning scientific ambition came first, and I would not think of endangering it.”

3739

Mother Dies in 1973

3755

Visits to the Mittag-Leffler Institute

3766

“The third meeting, in 2002, that my work inspired was on the mathematics of the Internet.”

3777

“To test new Internet equipment, one examines its performance under multifractal variability.”